Women's Safety on Business Travel in High-Risk Cities: A Practical Security Guide

The global business travel security industry has historically designed its guidance, its protocols, and its briefing content around a traveller who was assumed to be male. The practical security experience of women travelling on business to high-risk cities is different in ways that matter and that standard guidance frequently fails to address.

This is a guide to the specific risk factors that women face on business travel to high-risk cities, the practical security measures that address those risks, and what employers should be providing in pre-travel briefings.

The Specific Risk Factors

Street harassment and hostile environment. In most P1 cities, women — particularly women who are visibly foreign, visibly professional, or visibly affluent — experience high-frequency street harassment ranging from verbal to physical. In Lagos, Nairobi, Mumbai, Cairo, and Istanbul, OSAC’s annual reports note harassment of foreign women as a documented feature of the security environment. Harassment that escalates to assault or theft is a distinct risk category. Harassment that does not escalate still creates a hostile operating environment that degrades situational awareness and increases fatigue.

Transport assault risk. Taxi and rideshare assault targeting women is a documented incident type in most P1 cities. In Bogota and Mexico City, express kidnapping via fake taxis disproportionately affects women. In Manila, targeting of lone women in taxis and tricycles is a documented pattern. The solution is consistent: a vetted private driver for all ground movement, not public transport or hailed taxis.

Hotel security. Solo women in hotels are a documented target for intrusion and assault across multiple P1 markets. Methods include calls to the room claiming hotel staff require entry, social engineering at the reception desk to identify a solo female guest’s room number, and targeting of women in hotel bars and restaurants. Hotel security assessments should specifically evaluate policies and physical security relevant to solo women guests.

Harassment in professional environments. In some P1 markets, professional meetings and client entertainment may expose women travellers to unwanted physical contact, inappropriate behaviour from local business contacts, or situations — client dinners that become alcohol-heavy, after-hours entertainment venues — that a male traveller might navigate without incident but that create unacceptable risk for a woman. The pre-travel brief should address this specifically and give women permission to refuse situations that make them uncomfortable, without professional consequences.

Cultural and legal constraints. In Riyadh and other cities in the Gulf region, dress requirements and behavioural expectations for women differ materially from Western norms. These are not primarily crime risks — but a woman who inadvertently violates local norms may attract police attention, create confrontations with members of the public, or find herself in a situation where she requires the intervention of a local contact to resolve. The briefing must be specific.

What a Good Pre-Travel Brief Contains for Women Travellers

The pre-travel brief for a woman travelling to a P1 city should cover everything in the standard brief, plus the following.

Transport protocol. Explicit instruction to use only the vetted private driver for all movements. Contact numbers for the driver. Protocol for what to do if the driver is unavailable (call the company security line; do not take an unvetted alternative).

Hotel security measures. The specific hotel and room type (not a ground floor room, not adjacent to a service entrance or stairwell). Practical measures for the room (portable door alarm, door stop, verification protocol for anyone claiming to be hotel staff). The hotel security team contact number.

Dress and behaviour in the specific city. Not generic advice. Specific guidance: what is acceptable professional dress in this city’s business environment, what is appropriate for the street, and what is required in any culturally sensitive location (mosques, government buildings, conservative areas of the city). This is factual, not judgemental.

Incident reporting. Clear instruction on who to contact immediately if an incident occurs (company security line, the vetted driver, the recommended hospital) and reassurance that reports will be handled without minimisation or professional consequences.

The Employer’s Obligation

ISO 31030:2021 (Travel Risk Management) makes no distinction by gender in its duty of care obligations — they apply equally to all employees. An employer who sends a woman to Lagos on business without a gender-specific security brief, without a vetted driver, and without an emergency contact protocol has failed their duty of care obligations regardless of what the standard travel policy says.

Beyond the legal framing, this is an ethical responsibility. The security risks for women in high-risk cities are real, documented, and addressable. Failing to address them because the security programme was designed without women travellers in mind is not an adequate position.

For vetted security driver services in our P1 city network, see security drivers. For close protection for female principals and executives, see bodyguard hire. For pre-travel risk assessments covering gender-specific risk factors, see our pre-travel risk assessment service. City-specific security context is at Lagos, Nairobi, Riyadh, and Mumbai. For ongoing close protection programmes for female executives – covering team gender composition, cultural environment protocols, and intimate partner threat assessment – see our close protection for female principals guide.